A coherent life story helps your brain age well. Over age 40, brain activity reorganizes around your story to produce wisdom. Consequently, a coherent life story allows the brain to age more slowly than the body.
You may even be thinking, “What story? I don’t have a story.” Many people have said that to me over the years. I have even said that to myself, too. But that was back in my 30s and 40s. Back when I didn’t know how to become the hero of my story. It took me about 25 years to figure out how to do that.
Fortunately, it is not going to take you 25 years to become the hero of your story, because you are going to have more powerful tools than I had. But the sooner you start, the better, because your American brain is swimming against the current to age well over age 40.
Negative view makes brain age too fast
If aliens from another planet came to study American culture, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that aging is perceived to be a bad thing. The aging-medical-industrial complex has sold us a poisoned perception about life over 40, as if it is a time of inevitable decline best addressed with face lifts, hair dye, snake oil, and prayers for an effective Alzheimer’s drug (don’t hold your breath).
Wisdom, the point of life after 40, is ignored by this degenerative mindset. The culture that views aging as a loss of physical youth and retirement as a loss of social value is fertile ground for creating brain disorders.
If we drink this cultural Kool Aid that poisons our minds about aging, our brain health is easily derailed. As the brain ages faster than the body, we lose our stories before our lives end. Help your brain age well by ditching a negative view of aging.
Positive view helps brain age well
The human brain has evolved to do a job, not to get a disease. Yet the bad news of disorders and diseases get all the attention. Let’s pay more attention to the good news: our brains are built to produce a golden harvest of wisdom to share over a long life.
If you think that sounds crazy, consider the SuperAgers. These amazing people live long and well over age 80. They have cognitive functions even better than that of a typical middle-aged individual. In other words, SuperAgers’ brains are aging more slowly than their bodies. Their brains outlast their bodies: they die with their story intact.
In the U.S., SuperAgers receive little attention outside of the research community. By comparison, long-lived elders in Japan receive special recognition through these nine longevity celebrations between ages 60-108:
Japan’s success in building SuperAgers is evident by the best life expectancy rate in the world coupled with one of the lowest dementia rates. Several European countries—including Italy and Austria—accompany Japan as countries with long lifespans and the low dementia rates.
By contrast, Americans live “shorter, unhealthier lives” than our peers in other high-income nations. Despite this shorter lifespan, the U.S. remains in the top 10 countries in the world for death by dementia.
Reframe aging as a win
It does not have to be this way. Over the past 10 years, Germany has significantly reduced its dementia rate by tackling lifestyle risk factors (more on this later). During that same period, the U.S. dementia rate rose significantly while we hoped for an effective drug that never came.
An inflammaging wildfire is ravaging American brains and bodies because we reckon aging to be a loss, not a gain. Thanks to this cultural bias against aging, most Americans have a slim chance of becoming a SuperAger. But not you, because you will have the right tools to help your brain age well.
Better from Within: 7 Steps to a Wise Brain offers a proven way to make aging a win, not a loss. In the pages ahead, we will explore an exciting seven-step process with seven cool tools to shape your story.
Wisdom comes from your story
A coherent life story allows the brain to age more slowly than the body. Your story contains valuable wisdom that can add meaningful years to your life and help others. Wisdom grows from digesting your life experiences. The longer you live, the more wisdom you can harvest from your amazing story.
Your brain needs a story to make sense of this book—and we have one! Accompanying the book, and under the same title, Better from Within, we have produced a coming-of-middle-age dramedy. Grace, the main character, is grappling with some major midlife speed bumps.
As Grace uses the Better from Within: 7 Steps to a Wise Brain tools to navigate through her “issues,” you also will discover how to help your brain age well. The film is available at: betterfromwithin.info.
Additional excerpts coming soon
Better from Within: 7 Steps to a Wise Brain will be available in late 2024. This is the first excerpt of 8 excerpts. Sign up for the RSS at right to automatically receive additional excerpts every 2 weeks.
